1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to techniques for cooling integrated circuits and more particularly for cooling integrated circuits packaged in molded plastic packages.
2. Prior Art
Historically, integrated-circuit dies have tended to decrease in area, while the number of transistors contained on an integrated-circuit die have tended to increase. As a consequence, additional cooling is sometimes needed in order to keep the temperature of the integrated-circuit devices within safe limits. Previously, to obtain increased cooling efficiency for integrated circuits packaged in conventional molded plastic packages, an external add-on heatsink was fixed to an exterior surface of a standard molded plastic package. This add-on heatsink changes the profile of the standard integrated circuit package and in many cases requires mechanical redesign of the circuit board on which the integrated-circuit package is installed.
A need exists for improving the heat and thermal performance for integrated circuits packaged in conventional molded plastic packages, while at the same time maintaining the standard package profiles of these conventional plastic packages.